by Rachel Ogbu
What country will be the best for a baby born in 2013? A new finding suggests it’s definitely not Nigeria. In fact Nigeria will be the worst place to be born in 2013.
Singapore is ranked among the top ten places to enter the world.
The city-state comes in at sixth place in the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Where-to-be-born index, 2013.
Switzerland takes top spot, followed by Australia at No.2 and Norway at No. 3. The United States of America, where babies will inherit the large debts of the boomer generation, languishes back in 16th place while the United Kingdom came in at No. 27.
The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a sister company of The Economist, in attempts to measure what country will give the best opportunities for a healthy, safe and prosperous life in the years ahead conducted research that measured the quality-of-life index linked the results of subjective life-satisfaction surveys—how happy people say they are—to objective determinants of the quality of life across countries.
Small economies dominate the top ten. Half of these are European, but only one, the Netherlands, is from the euro zone. The Nordic countries shine, but the crisis-ridden south of Europe (Greece, Portugal and Spain) lags behind despite the advantage of a favourable climate. The largest European economies (Germany, France and Britain) do not do particularly well.
Despite their economic dynamism, none of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) scores impressively. Among the 80 countries covered, Nigeria comes last: it is the worst place for a baby to enter the world in 2013.
That's okay, now that I have heard that, what's the information for-i mean, you have given that fact. Nigeria is the worst place to live in bla bla bla, what do you want me to do? Just hear it and start crying in my room? Or start planning not to have any child born in this country? Next time you bring something of this nature out for Nigerians to read, try and put solutions and encouragement there too. Stop poisoning the minds of people with bad news that will only make them think bad about the nation all the time. Its a fact, but where is the positivity in the whole write up?, where is the hope you are giving people?, where is the ready mind you are encouraging people to have so as to put in their own quota to the development of the "worst place to be born in 2013"? Nigerian media, please improve. To whom much is given, much is really expected. God bless you. God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.